


All That's Best of Dark and Bright

by saltandbyrne



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Age Difference, Angst and Porn, Covid-19 Related, M/M, Manipulation, Mildly Dubious Consent, Phone Sex, Power Imbalance, Quarantine related, Teacher-Student Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-29
Updated: 2020-04-29
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:28:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23901607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltandbyrne/pseuds/saltandbyrne
Summary: That Eames is even thinking of Arthur in the midst of all this is insane.  It’s strange, the things one's brain fixates on when the world falls apart. It had been one of his first thoughts, amidst the bizarre scramble to inventory how much soup he had in the house (Eames doesn’t even like soup) and whether he could still go to the gym (he makes it twice a week if he’s lucky).  Eames had sat down at his desk, stunned, and thought,Does this mean I won’t see Arthur again?
Relationships: Arthur/Eames (Inception)
Comments: 32
Kudos: 128





	All That's Best of Dark and Bright

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Exaggerated_Specificity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Exaggerated_Specificity/gifts).



> Please note: Arthur is 18 here, but just barely. Eames is his teacher. None of this should happen in real life. (Dub-con warning is for the power imbalance, not for Arthur's enthusiasm).
> 
> For my love. I hope this gives you a few blessed seconds of distraction.
> 
> Thank you FaeGentry for the beta read, you are marvelous.

Arthur is a problem student.

Well. That’s not quite right. Arthur is, indeed, Eames’s student. One of his best, in fact. Arthur gets top marks on all his exams and writes some of the best essays Eames has ever had the pleasure of grading. 

Arthur is also a problem. Arthur, who always stays late after class and leans over Eames’s desk _just so_. Arthur, with those dark, serious eyes that sear into Eames while he lectures. Arthur, who has the most pert little arse Eames has ever seen. 

_Maybe Eames is the one with the problem._

That Eames is even thinking of Arthur in the midst of all this is insane. It’s strange, the things one's brain fixates on when the world falls apart. It had been one of his first thoughts, amidst the bizarre scramble to inventory how much soup he had in the house (Eames doesn’t even like soup) and whether he could still go to the gym (he makes it twice a week if he’s lucky). Eames had sat down at his desk, stunned, and thought, _Does this mean I won’t see Arthur again?_

But Eames has to make coffee, and put on a clean shirt. He scrubs a hand over his face, frowning at the tickle of stubble that’s come in across his chin. _Fuck it_. Half his students look like they’ve abandoned personal hygiene entirely. No one cares about his two-day scruff. 

Eames has advised many students on the power of ritual during these times of uncertainty. Eames’s particular anxiety has coalesced around his coffee. Before quarantine (which is still a bizarre phrase to throw around in his brain), most days, Eames was happy to grab a cup of coffee from the corner bodega by school, the one with the gnarled tabby cat that kept watch as the owner spooned too much sugar in and told him to “Have a nice day, Teach.” Now, Eames has a makeshift lab on his small kitchen island that would impress even Ms. Monroe in Chemistry. Here’s Eames, grinding beans and weighing them out on a kitchen scale for his fussy little Chemex set-up. _No time like quarantine to start using housewarming gifts from your ex- and his obnoxiously rich new boyfriend._

The coffee is delicious, he’ll admit that much. He can’t quite bring himself to sweeten it to the bodega level, but he allows himself a generous teaspoon of Sugar in the Raw. It’s better than a splash of whiskey. If Eames has one more fucking Zoom meeting with his principal reminding him that “Shakespeare wrote King Lear while he was quarantined for the plague!” Eames is going to start drinking on the job. Fucking King Lear. Like Eames has time to do anything except cry in the shower and listlessly scroll through Grindr like some dick is going to magically materialize in his lonely studio apartment.

No. Eames still has to teach. The weeks have sloughed off normalcy, leaving himself and everyone he knows with erratic new patterns of sleeping and eating and masturbating on endless, raw repeat, but Eames still has his classes. Sometimes they’re the worst part of his day, and sometimes they’re the only thing that reels him back from the abyss.

Even on these damned tiny screens, Arthur is beautiful. His hair is slicked back from his forehead, like he’d just combed it after a shower. Yesterday, he’d appeared in nothing but a bloody undershirt, testing every inch of Eames’s resolve not to just slam his laptop shut on sight. He’s in a t-shirt today, a bright green one featuring a dancing loaf of cartoon bread with “Challah!” printed above its spindly arms. 

Eames hasn’t bothered taking attendance since the third day of this shit. He’s pleasantly surprised that most of the students still show up. He’d love to laud the healing powers of English literature or his own pedagogic skill, but he’s pretty sure it’s sheer boredom that brings them blinking to life on his screen.

They’re all trying, although some more than others. Eames is fairly certain Xochilt Pinoy is smoking a bowl just off-screen, but Eames isn’t going to narc on her. These kids aren’t even going to get to have a high school graduation. 

Eames has abandoned all lesson planning. His class is now a glorified book club and group therapy session. Everyone is getting an A. Dante Jones hasn’t worn a shirt for three days straight. There are no rules anymore, not that Eames ever had much use for them. 

He’d let the class pick their current book. He’d worried Frankenstein would be too grim, but they seem to be enjoying it. 

“Mr. Eames,” Arthur pipes up, “this made me think of you.”

Arthur switches to presentation mode and shares a screenshot from twitter.

_Things you can do when you’re stuck in the house:_

_\- write a fragment that eventually turns into one of the world’s first vampire stories_

_\- basically invent science fiction with your novel_

_\- *sigh* another unsatisfying threesome with Lord Byron, if we must_

Eames laughs, laughs like he hasn’t laughed in days. It’s objectively funny, first of all, and he’s tickled that Arthur knows him well enough to share it. Eames has always had a soft spot for Byron. It’s not his fault he loves dark, dramatic twinks.

Eames leads a rambling discussion of 1816: The Year Without A Summer. He can almost forget, for a moment, that he’s not in his classroom, with the light filtering in through the grated windows. Spring time always makes the kids restless, and in these brief flickers of life as it was, Eames can pretend it’s the zephyr song of new life calling their attention elsewhere as he takes in the glazed eyes and distant stares of half his class. 

He ends with a reminder to finish the book if they feel like it. Or not. It doesn’t matter.

“One final announcement,” Eames adds. “I’ve been told today isn’t just another Tuesday.” _It is Tuesday, isn’t it?_

“Yeah, we’re in fucking quarantine,” mutters Alex Sanders, the little shit. Eames glibly ignores him and smiles at Arthur’s little square.

“Happy birthday, Arthur.”

Arthur’s classmates burst into applause and flood him with well-wishes. Eames leads them through his customary round of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow”, pleased that most of the class joins in. 

Arthur rolls his eyes and accepts his birthday attention with measured resignation. 

“If we must,” Arthur murmurs, staring directly into the camera. Eames clears his throat. 

“Very good, I’ll see you lot tomorrow. Stay safe.” Eames waves as the little squares blink out of existence one by one, until it’s just Arthur staring back at him. 

“I hope you can celebrate tonight, Arthur. I’m so sorry,” Eames adds uselessly. He’s so sick of saying how sorry he is but he can’t seem to stop. 

“I’ll try,” Arthur says. His smile doesn’t reach the soft crinkles around his eyes. 

“If there’s anything I can do for you—“

“I know.” Arthur’s smile grows fractionally wider. “I’ll see you later, Mr. Eames.”

He means tomorrow, but Eames can barely keep time himself. His coffee is cold as he takes a sip and readies himself for the virtual purgatory of AP Lit. 

~

Eames had made a lot of rash decisions when the news hit. He’d bought alcohol he would never drink under normal circumstances _(a case of Riesling, really?)_ , a bag of rice that could double for deadlifting, and a sleeve of pens so comically large that he could hand-write the next great British ex-pat novel ten times over. 

Giving his students his personal number isn’t his greatest regret. It had seemed the least he could do, the smallest olive branch of support he could offer when he felt so powerless. A few of them have made use of it. He gets a few stupid memes and inspirational quotes a day, the occasional request for a book recommendation, a rambling late-night love confession from poor Alicia Harrow that he politely ignores. 

The evenings seem endless. 

Eames does a half-hearted workout, dragging his body through enough squats and push-ups to marginally atone for the unholy quantity of pasta he’s been eating. He doesn’t even think about the liquor. He understands intellectually that this is good for him, working up a sweat and getting good chemicals flowing through him, but he’d be lying if he said he felt significantly better afterward. Sweatier, perhaps marginally less gripped with existential dread, sore between his legs. It’s like mediocre sex. Eames lies on his mat and wonders if he should have just jerked off instead. His phone lets out an obnoxiously cheerful chirp, hauling him off the floor and out of his head. It’s a text from a number he doesn’t recognize.

_I need to talk to you. It’s important_

_this is Arthur Cohen_

Eames’s heart backs up somewhere between his ribs. For all of Arthur’s coy glances and arch-backed trips to Eames’s desk, he hasn’t taken advantage of Eames’s number so far. Eames responds immediately.

_Of course, what’s the matter?_

Eames frowns as the glowing bubbles of Arthur typing go dead. He’s so startled when a FaceTime request lights up that he almost drops the phone. Eames glances around the room, panicked, and curses himself for actually putting his clothes away for once. Fucking quarantine stress-cleaning. He doesn’t have a shirt or anything to cover himself with, but Arthur could be in trouble. Eames could lose him. He swipes the call open.

He sees Arthur almost every day, but Eames is still gobsmacked by how gorgeous he is. He’s wearing the same green t-shirt, but his hair’s messier, like he’s been running distracted hands through it. He’s lovely.

“Arthur? Is everything alright?” Eames settles at his small corner desk and leans his phone against a stack of books. 

“I knew it,” Arthur gasps, eyes roving over Eames’s bare arms. _Fuck_. This is why Eames always covers himself up when he teaches. He likes his tattoos, but they garner too much attention from students that should be going to the written word. 

Eames closes his eyes and takes a deep breath through his nose. “Can we keep this between us, please?”

Arthur leans in, one lean forearm crossing over the other. “I’m good at keeping secrets.”

Eames lets that one slide with a raised eyebrow. “How are you?”

“I’m okay,” Arthur shrugs, noncommittal. Eames has been working with teenagers long enough to know that even if Arthur’s got something on his mind, he’s not going to give it up easily.

“Hell of a way to spend your birthday,” Eames continues, noting the soft snort Arthur gives. “Did you get to celebrate at all?”

“My mom ordered Thai food. And my dad tried to make a cake, but it was kind of a disaster. They don’t cook that much.” Arthur shrugs. “I don’t really like sweets, anyway.”

Arthur’s parents do something well-paying, law or finance or some other thing that sends Arthur to Aspen for skiing trips and cushy summer internships. Eames has always pictured him in a classic six on the Upper West Side, although he’s never taken the liberty of actually looking up Arthur’s address. He can just see the background of Arthur’s room, which has a bay window and an improbable MGMT poster hanging on one wall. _God, Arthur probably considers that classic rock._

“I’m glad you got to do something.” Eames tries not to notice the way Arthur traces his finger over the neck of his t-shirt, dragging the ribbed material down until Eames can see the sharp flash of his clavicle. He licks his lips.

Arthur snorts again and shakes his head. “I never thought I’d miss going to school so much.”

“I miss it, too.” Eames used to curse his commute, stuffed like a sardine onto the subway, cheek-to-jowl with humanity’s unwashed masses. He’d give an eyetooth just to be sandwiched next to some stranger’s armpit now. He’d give so much more to see Arthur again.

“Do you miss me?” Arthur’s still tugging at his shirt, hooking his fingers into it and letting them hang as he blinks fawnishly at Eames. 

“Of course I do,” Eames answers as evenly as he can, fighting the urge to stare at the swath of skin Arthur’s baring for him. “You know you’re one of my best students, Arthur.”

“They’re saying the whole year’s gonna get cancelled.” 

Eames has heard this rumor, too, and doesn’t have the heart to confirm it to Arthur. “It’s possible.”

Arthur’s looking away from the screen, his vision focused on something to the left. He looks so sad Eames’s stomach clenches. “What if I never see you again?”

“I know it seems so far away, Arthur, but this will all end. You can come see me at school when you visit.”

Arthur’s going to some small, tony college upstate, where the cafeterias serve better food than Eames can afford on his salary and the alumni name their yachts after purebred family dogs. 

“But it’s all right to be scared. I’m scared, too. Is that why you called, Arthur?”

“I love the way you say my name.” Arthur’s hand is still in his shirt, tugging down as his eyes blink closed. This is bait Eames is too smart to rise to.

“Arthur,” he repeats anyway, indulgent, loving the weight of it on his tongue far too much. Arthur blinks back into focus, his eyes wide and dark as he stares at Eames.

“I’m gay,” Arthur blurts out, biting his lip after.

 _Ah_. Arthur isn’t the first student to come out to Eames. “I see,” Eames replies, smiling softly. Eames keeps all discussion of his personal life in decidedly neutral territory, but he also doesn’t pretend to have a wife at home or some nonsense like that. Arthur just needs someone to talk to, and naturally he’d think of Mr. Eames, beloved Senior English Lit teacher, probable homosexual, trusted authority figure. That’s all this is. Eames keeps his smile steady and his tone soft.

“Do you feel safe at home?”

Arthur shrugs like he’s never even considered this. “Oh, yeah, my parents know. It’s not a big deal.”

Eames believes him. Arthur’s parents are the kind of dog-whistle liberals that send their gifted son to public school when they can clearly afford private. Arthur leans back in his chair, his arms flashing pale in the back-glow of his screen as he crosses them behind his head.

“I’m supposed to be on spring break right now. I was supposed to go to prom and get someone on the swim team drunk enough to fuck me. Shit, I probably shouldn’t tell you that.” Arthur stares at him like he has no regrets.

Eames rests his chin in his hand. “I was seventeen once, too, Arthur.”

“Eighteen,” Arthur points out, adorably smug. “I’m eighteen today.”

“So you are,” Eames whispers, feeling the Earth tilt softly on its axis beneath him.

“I’m eighteen and I’ve never even...” Arthur trails off, his lower lip wavering and his eyes glassy on Eames’s screen. Eames’s fingers curl, useless to offer Arthur any comfort. 

“I just… what if no one ever touches me?” Saint Sebastian himself couldn’t look more anguished. “I don’t even know what it’s like.”

If Eames holds the oars in this conversation, it’s a simple maneuver to steer this back on course. There’s nothing wrong with Arthur’s fears. Eames knows the melancholy frenzy of blooming sexuality, the fever-grip of empty skin and a twin bed. Two of Arthur’s fingers trace over the tempting jut of his collarbones, lapping back and forth.

“You know what it’s like, don’t you?” Arthur’s dark eyes glow in the dim light, two white-blue halos burning a beacon for Eames’s moth-eaten composure. 

“What it’s like?” Eames repeats, lame as a broken wing. Arthur leans closer, tilting his head.

“To kiss someone.”

Here’s Eames, rudderless in a world that’s frothing white and reckless around them all. His lips tremble, rushing toward the rapids of things better left unsaid. The thought that no one has ever touched Arthur shouldn’t make him so disgustingly pleased. Eames should step aside, try to part the current that’s pulling at every stray thread inside him. “You’ve never been kissed?”

“Not really. There was this guy at sailing camp, we only did, like, hand stuff.” The apple-bright spots of color on Arthur’s cheeks make Eames’s mouth water. “But he had a girlfriend.”

Eames shakes his head, out of sympathy for Arthur and the pang of familiarity that blooms in his chest. He’s been there. They’ve all been there. “You deserve someone who knows how lucky they are to have you.”

“Are any of us getting what we deserve lately?” Arthur stares off-screen, baleful and brimming with all the injustice of youth. Arthur deserves more than all of this, deserves every bright heartbreak and endless summer of his early years, deserves all the mad frenzy of the halcyon days of being a teenager. Like a caged bird, Arthur stares out at him, needful, gorgeous, furious.

“No,” Eames answers simply, “We certainly aren’t.” And maybe it’s just the justification of Eames’s pockmarked psyche, but Arthur is mature for his age. The years haven’t tread across the smooth perfection of Arthur’s face or tugged at the long, glistening lines of his neck, but the face staring back at Eames is clouded with a lifetime of longing.

“You deserve everything, Arthur. And you’ll have it, I swear. You’ve got a whole life, and you’ll be loved and cherished, and you’ll have your heart broken and you’ll get back up and do it again.”

Arthur rolls his eyes, the muscles of his jaw jumping as he sets his chin out. “I see how you look at me.”

Eames’s cheeks are burning. Eames is burning, fidgeting in his chair like Arthur’s the one proctoring some exam he hasn’t prepared for. 

“Everyone knows, that you’re, you know,” Arthur shrugs, one slim shoulder rising up. “No one cares. Except maybe some of the girls, they all have crushes on you.”

“Arthur—”

“I knew right away. I can always tell, is that normal? Even when it’s someone’s dad. I can feel how they look at me.”

A muscle in Eames’s jaw jumps, in bitter resentment and furious envy of any wayward fathers who have lingered too long on Arthur’s body. There’s no guilt like a shared sin.

“You look at me like that.”

“How do I look at you, Arthur?”

Arthur licks his lips, and before Eames can draw a breath, Arthur pulls his t-shirt over his head, and Eames is confronted with enough bare, creamy skin to make his jaw hang open.

“Like that.”

The flat planes of Arthur’s chest rise and fall with his breath, smoother where his narrow shoulders roll in. His nipples are darker than Eames has pictured, and a few valiant hairs march down below his navel to mark Arthur as a man. 

“Arthur—”

“Don’t you want to look at me?”

Eames tries to close his eyes. _He tries._ “We can’t do this, Arthur.”

“Can’t, or won’t?” The mulish set of Arthur’s chin shouldn’t be so beguiling. 

“Your parents are home,” Eames says through his teeth, ignoring the thrill that snakes its way between his legs. 

“My mom took a Xanax with her cabernet sauvignon, and my dad’s not even bothering to close his office door when he smokes his ‘glaucoma meds’ anymore.” Arthur rolls his eyes. “I could set my bed on fire and they wouldn’t notice.”

“I’m your _teacher_ , Arthur.” Eames can’t help the sideways looks he gives his own empty apartment, as though the PTA and his union rep are going to walk through the walls any minute. 

Arthur lets out a _pfft_. “Barely. What, eight more weeks of pretending I’m learning shit on these stupid fucking Zoom calls and then it would magically be okay if I picked you up on Scruff?”

Eames blanches. Arthur shouldn’t know about Scruff. Oh, God, what if Arthur finds his profile? It doesn’t have his face, but it has plenty of his tattoos. 

“It’s… that’s not the point, Arthur.”

“And it’s normal to be hot for your teacher,” Arthur continues, “like that old song.”

Eames’s heartbeat in his ears could double as percussion for an entire Van Halen tour. 

“What if I weren’t your student? What if you just met me one night, just saw me at a bar or something?”

Eames tamps down his honest response — he’d have Arthur up against a wall before the next song started — and forces the sternest expression he can manage onto his face. “I’m twice your age, Arthur.”

Arthur shouldn’t flutter his eyes and sigh like that when Eames says it. Arthur should _never_ do that, it should be illegal. 

“There are lots of people your own age you could talk to, Arthur, there are great support groups and—”

“I don’t want to talk to someone my own age. I don’t want to talk to anyone but you.”

Arthur crosses his arms over his chest and leans back in his chair, his chin angled to one side. Eames has seen this expression before, when Arthur knee-caps one of his classmates during a debate. 

“If you won’t, I’ll find someone who will. There are plenty of guys who’d be happy to talk to me like this.” Arthur rubs a hand behind his neck, raising his elbow to expose the modest patch of hair on his underarm. Eames’s mouth waters even as his stomach sinks. 

“That’s not a good idea, Arthur, you… you don’t know who you’d be talking to.”

“I know,” Arthur says, leaning in. “That’s why I called you. I’m so sick of everyone fucking lying to me. _Everything’s going to be fine, we’ll get back to normal soon_ ,” Arthur sing-songs, the sneer of derision across his lips so teenage it makes Eames’s insides churn with guilt. “I trust you, Mr. Eames.”

“Just call me Eames,” slips out before he can swallow it. 

Arthur bites his lip, letting it slide out slowly as Eames loses hold of everything around him. “I trust you, Eames.” Arthur says his name long on the E and lazy on the S, parsel-tongued. Eames sways, as easily hypnotized as a field mouse. “And I want you.”

Arthur’s wearing a pair of loose sweatpants, pale grey and knotted around his slim hips. Eames can see the cut of his abs meeting his hips as he leans back against his desk chair. “Don’t you want me, too?” Arthur’s hand disappears beneath the elastic. “Please don’t lie to me.” Arthur’s wrist curls, and his eyes dip shut just to flutter back and catch Eames in the crosshairs. 

Arthur deserves so much better than this, but so does Eames, so does everyone who’s lonely and scared and shackled to the useless, glowing company of a screen. 

“Of course I do, Arthur.” Eames’s cock aches as he watches Arthur cup himself under the fabric of his sweats. 

“Where would you kiss me?”

 _Everywhere_ , Eames thinks, helpless.

This is how Eames loses his job. This is how his whole life comes crashing down around him, all the careful restraint and resistance he’s exercised undone in one crushing, back-lit second.

“Your lips,” Eames whispers, licking his own as Arthur traces his index finger over the swell of his bottom lip. “And your neck.” God, he’s spent days dreaming about Arthur’s neck, long and lean and bared back for him. Arthur smiles and traces his fingers down the side of it.

“I bet that feels good.” Arthur tilts his head to the side.

Eames nods. “And your jaw, and up behind your ear.”

Eames, who’s spent the past weeks watching a truly astounding amount of hardcore pornography, has never seen anything more captivating than Arthur tracing over the delicate curves of his face.

“Would you give me a hickey?” Arthur’s smile is at half-mast, lazy on his lips.

“Not there.” Eames’s mouth waters. In some distant, hale future, there’s Arthur, painted purple with the brushstroke of Eames’s mouth. 

“I’d kiss your stomach, take my time so you’re trembling for me.”

Arthur’s hand skims down his stomach, joining the other one behind his waistband.

“I’d kiss you right there, at the crease of your thigh.” Eames presses his thumb into the same part on himself, hissing through his teeth. Would Arthur squirm in his hands? Would his legs fall open when Eames nuzzled against him?

“Here?” Arthur scoots his chair back farther and slings one thumb into the waistband of his sweats, tugging them down so slowly Eames can swear his heart stops. Eames has paid cash for lap dances and never seen anyone tease like Arthur. He slides the top of his sweats down until Eames can just see the crease of his thigh, the dark scrape of his pubic hair, the taut muscles that Arthur probably doesn’t even work to have. Arthur glances back up, eyes wide and guileless even as the outline of his cock strains against his pants. 

“Take your shirt off. Please?”

Eames hesitates. Letting Arthur have his way is one thing, but taking his own clothes off feels like joining in more than he should. 

“Please, Eames?”

In some part of Eames that he will swallow down and never examine, it’s how innocent Arthur sounds that has him tugging his T-shirt over his head. 

“Oh my God—” Arthur sighs, taking in Eames’s tattooed chest. 

Eames resists the urge to flex— those push-ups aren’t for nothing— and settles for reaching one hand behind his neck while Arthur stares. 

“I want to touch you,” Arthur says, his eyes flitting around Eames’s body. “Would you let me?”

“Anywhere.” Eames shudders as a wave of goosebumps rides across his skin. Arthur’s so intent on him it could burn through the damnably tiny screen of his phone.

“I look at your mouth all the time. While you’re teaching, when I see you in the hall.”

At least something in this pixelated hallucination is familiar. Eames knows his best assets. He licks his lips and stares down pointedly, where Arthur’s dick is straining against the soft material of his pants.

“I’d kiss you right there, where your thumb is,” Eames says, his lip rising as Arthur starts to stroke along the tender skin of his inner thigh. His waistband slides down an inch, giving Eames another glimpse of the base of his cock.

“Here?” Arthur leans his head back, dragging his thumb lower until the head of his cock is trapped against his waistband. Arthur’s so slim, Eames could clasp his hands around that waist and let his thumbs touch while he noses into the soft curls pluming around Arthur’s cock. Arthur hikes his hips up and slides his sweats down the narrow slope of his hips. 

“What about here?”

There’s Arthur, with his cock in his hand and his lips flushed apart, bare and beautiful and bound in the fifteen square inches of his phone. Eames could trap him in amber like this, honey-stuck in this timeless night. Eames can’t remember what day it is, but he’ll remember this for the rest of his life. 

Arthur’s not inexperienced here. Artless, maybe, but Eames is so tired of looking at art. Arthur strokes himself to the tip, curling his fist and hunching his shoulders down. He’s got a gorgeous prick.

_“Christ, Arthur.”_

Eames’s whole body aches when Arthur does it again. He’s slower this time, quick to warm to an audience. His tongue flits over his lips, leaving them gleaming. 

“What’s it like, to,” Arthur stops and swallows, his lips pressed together. “To suck someone’s dick?”

“It’s wonderful.” Eames slides his hand down under his desk, where Arthur can’t see. He cups himself through his track pants, grinding the heel of his hand down. He’d forgotten he could get this hard. “It’s one of my favorite things to do.”

“I bet you’re good at it.” 

Eames grins. “I’ve been told.” God, the _noises_ Arthur would make when Eames takes him all the way down. “I bet you taste so good.”

Arthur stops, half his mouth rising up into a grin. He spreads his legs wider, gives himself one long, lazy stroke before dragging the edge of his thumb over his slit. Eames’s mouth waters, envious and trembling as Arthur brings it to his lips. Arthur hums as he sucks it between his lips, a twin to the pained noise Eames makes.

“Touch yourself again.” The words are out of his mouth before Eames can register them. _He shouldn’t be giving Arthur orders, he shouldn’t be doing any of this._ Then Arthur licks his palm and wraps his hand around his dick and Eames can’t think of a single reason he should be doing anything else.

“I’d make you feel so good, Arthur.”

Arthur makes a soft grunt, something encouraging, and starts stroking his cock faster. 

Eames’s voice is thick in his throat. “If I saw you in some nasty little dive bar, do you know what I’d do?”

It’s so easy to imagine it all, that Arthur is some louche little thing glittering at the other end of the bar, making eyes at Eames and nursing an oversweet mixed drink he can barely tolerate. Eames can feel it, the warm press of bodies around him, the din of the crowd over some tepid pop song, the lighting dim enough to leave everyone looking like they’re on the edge of seventeen. All the things Eames took for granted, all the things that seem so far away. Arthur arches closer, his eyes gleaming as he works himself and stares expectantly back at Eames.

“I’d take you by the scruff of your neck and drag you into the nearest toilet, and then I’d make you come so hard you’d forget your own name.”

“I’d, _fuck_ ,” Arthur mutters, swerving his wrist and breathing heavily, “I’d remember yours. Eames.”

Eames shivers. Arthur’s just the right height for his lips to brush against Eames’s ear, to throw his arms around Eames’s neck, to giggle and traipse over Eames’s feet as he dances them back to the loo. 

“Say it again. Say it while you come for me, Arthur.”

Arthur wouldn’t last five minutes with Eames’s mouth on him, he’s sure of it. 

“I want to come in your mouth, Eames, _Eames_ —” and there’s Arthur, lips wrenched apart, head flung back, the sharp tendons of his neck snapping into relief as he spurts all over his hand. Eames would swallow every drop of it.

“Beautiful boy,” Eames murmurs, more to himself. Arthur’s still gasping for breath, wreathed in red where his chest and throat are flushed and gleaming. He’d be so warm to Eames’s touch. His hand is shaking when he wipes it on his discarded shirt. Arthur’s heart would beat against his lips, tapping out the morse-code of his secrets. Arthur licks his lips and looks up from under his lashes.

“I want to see you.”

Eames can play dumb. “I’m right here.”

“You know what I mean.” Arthur frowns at him, pouty. He may not like sweets but he’s clearly used to getting them when he asks.

“I can’t, Arthur, it’s not—”

“I showed you mine.” Arthur’s breath is still unsteady. “And I mean, it’s not like anyone would believe you if you said you just watched me.”

What sickness is it, that this veiled threat makes his throat thicken and his skin flush all over? A tiger cub’s cute until it rips your arm off. Eames has bitten off more than he can chew with Arthur, and maybe he always knew this, that _Arthur_ wasn’t the one in danger from _him_.

“Arthur, you can’t tell anyone.” Eames has always sensed this, in the eviscerative quality of Arthur’s writing, the toothsome contention of his feedback for his fellow students. Arthur is dangerous. _Was Eames this powerful at eighteen, full to the brim with devastation and unblemished bravado?_ No. He can’t have been. The world wouldn’t be safe if everyone were an Arthur.

“I won’t, I would never. I just...” another slip of his tongue, fingers tracing back along the slope of his neck. “Don’t I make you hard?”

Arthur’s change-of-tack from quiet menace to doe-eyed need is blinding. He blinks at Eames, like blackmail is only the dimmest word in his vocabulary, sandwiched somewhere between _bare_ and _blameless_.

“I want you to fuck me.”

Here’s Eames, the patron saint of perpetual ruin, grinding his teeth and his palm against his cock to stave himself off. Like there’s anything left for him to save, like he wasn’t doomed the moment Arthur occupied a front row seat inside his head.

“I think about it all the time. I use my fingers but I know it’s not the same.”

There’s a wet spot soaking into the tented material of Eames’s track pants. Arthur’s lips glisten as he leans in, bowing the slender lines of his chest in to make himself even smaller.

“I can show you. If you let me see.” 

Eames pushes his chair back, the legs scraping against the floor like the yawning jaws of a spring. Eames doesn’t need threats or incentives, not when the earnest flush on Arthur’s face is the warmest thing he’s seen in weeks. Eames will gladly stick his arm into the bear trap of Arthur’s affection.

“You want to see what you do to me, Arthur?”

Eames leans back and slides the elastic of his waistband down, tucking it under his balls. His cock throbs against the empty air, arching up to his stomach.

“I knew it was big,” Arthur whispers, his eyes wide as Eames takes himself in hand. Eames, imminently human and hardly immune to pride, slides his hand down to grip himself at the base. Arthur stares, his lips parting as Eames teases his foreskin back, sliding his thumb over it. “I’ve never seen an uncut one before.”

“It’s more sensitive,” Eames explains, breathless, curling his wrist as Arthur nods wordlessly.

Would he make the same face if he were kneeling on some ragged tile floor, if he offered himself at Eames’s feet? Would his tongue flick out to explore the novelty of Eames’s cock? Eames strokes himself, lazy, showing off for Arthur’s wide-eyed greed. 

“I knew it was big, but I didn’t think it was that big,” Arthur sighs, staring at Eames’s dick and absently rolling his own balls. 

“Show me, Arthur, show me where you need it.”

“Yeah, _fuck_ , yeah.” Arthur nods, puppy-eager, and the image on Eames’s phone goes sideways as Arthur stands up and kicks his sweatpants off. Eames catches glimpses of soccer trophies and a teeming bookcase, a Miró poster and original crown molding before he’s settled back onto a flat surface.

Arthur climbs onto his unmade bed and fishes something out of his bed-side table. It’s a tube of floral-packaged Astroglide that looks suspiciously like Arthur stole it from his parents. Eames resigns that idea to the incinerator. 

“I want you inside me.” Arthur turns to face him, naked and gorgeous, up on his knees with his cock already flagging back to interest. _God, to be eighteen again._ He spreads his legs and sinks down, leaning in closer. “Want you to bend me over your desk.”

Arthur sinks onto his hands before he cat-crawls around to give Eames his back. Eames has bent a lot of boys over a lot of things, but Arthur arse-up on his messy bed makes Eames dizzy. His mouth waters, hungry for all that tight muscle. “Is that what you think about, when you’re staring at me while I lecture?”

Arthur turns to look over his shoulder, his hair falling to one side. “Always.”

And then Arthur’s fingers are slick and stroking along the cleft of his arse and Eames can barely breathe. Arthur slides his middle finger inside himself.

“Think about you fucking me in school, keeping me after class.”

Eames has to bite his cheek to keep from growling out loud. Arthur’s breath is shaky as he sinks down to the knuckle, the bird-bones of his wrist moving under his skin as he works in and out. 

“Does it hurt? Getting fucked?” Arthur’s voice hitches as he slips his index finger in. 

Eames’s first time had been on a ratty sofa in William Godfrey’s sub-level, with his face next to a crushed can of Carlsberg and his older sister blasting the bloody Spice Girls in the next room. Arthur deserves silk sheets, a king-sized bed, champagne. 

“It’s strange, the first few times. But I’d never hurt you, Arthur.”

Arthur makes a tender noise. “I know.” 

“I’d open you up so slowly, with my fingers. Put my tongue in you.” The _sounds_ Arthur would make when Eames licks into him.

 _“Fuck,”_ Arthur moans, canting his hips back, the slim columns of his thighs spreading apart. 

“Till you’re aching for it.” Eames squeezes out a fat pearl of precome and spreads it with his thumb. Eames is aching, throbbing harder in his own hand than he has in half the men he’s fucked in recent memory.

“I _am_.” Arthur’s just this side of petulant, a tone Eames could rattle out of him with one snap of his hips. 

“I know, darling, I know. I’ll take such good care of you.”

Eames is a wretched person and a middling teacher at best, but he’s damn good in bed. He’ll make Arthur feel so good, show him things that none of the closeted little pricks at his posh summer camp can imagine. None of them deserve Arthur.

“Look at me, Arthur. Look at me while you fuck yourself, let me see your face.”

Arthur turns and ambles onto his side, graceless and scrambling, not quite grown into his paws. Those long legs would snug around Eames’s waist perfectly, ankles tangled behind his back like overgrown weeds. Eames’s screen goes white for a moment, blinded by the halogen glow of Arthur’s bedside light, and then Arthur’s smiling at him, lopsided and sweet.

“Look at you.”

There’s Arthur, with his hair all mussed and his face nuzzled into the duvet, his eyes half-shut and barely focused. Eames could drown in those soft whines, needy noises that should be fed into Eames’s mouth, not wasted on Arthur’s sheets. 

“Fuck me, Eames,” Arthur moans, writhing back onto his hand. 

Arthur could be a million miles away, but here, clutched in the small universe of Eames’s phone, he’s close enough that Eames could kiss him. Some spark that Eames had tamped down when the world closed its door flares back to life as Arthur stares at him.

“Anything, Arthur, I’ll give you anything.”

Age might bring stamina but Eames doesn’t want to think about how old he is right now, how old and tired and scared and lonely he’ll be when he wakes up alone tomorrow with the aftertaste of Arthur’s name in his mouth. He pumps his fist, works himself rough, his jaw setting hard as Arthur’s lip trembles and the world goes white.

“Arthur, Arthur, oh _God_ —” Eames lets it hit his chest. Let Arthur watch, let him see how hard he makes Eames come. Eames hasn’t felt this good in months. Someone should bear witness.

“Fuck, fuck,” Arthur chants, dazed and gleaming with sweat. As Eames’s breath canters out of his lungs and his cock pulses out wet aftershocks, Arthur doesn’t blink, just rolls Eames with him and fists his cock in his too-slick hand.

Arthur’s hard again, flush with the misspent refraction of youth. How many times could Eames get him off before Arthur collapses? 

“Fuck, I’m gonna come,” Arthur slurs, like Eames can’t read it in the pinched line of his nose, the rabbit-rise of his lip, the flutter of his eyes as they roll back. 

“I’ll show you how to do that on nothing but my cock,” Eames promises, and Arthur looks truly shocked as he shoots all over his stomach.

Through the haze of the best orgasm Eames has had in weeks, he feels his throat hitch at the beauty of Arthur, head tossed back and the brand-new breadth of his shoulders shaking.

Here’s Eames, with his own come slicking his stomach and his best student laid low before him. Eames can’t even stroke his hair and promise him this will all be fine, somehow. There are moments of darkness where Eames wonders if he’ll ever feel someone’s touch again, if he’ll waste away on perfectly-brewed coffee and hardcore porn. Perhaps he already has, and this whole evening is just some monstrous thing stitched together from Eames’s pitch-black soul and shocked into life by the lightning strike of Arthur’s memory.

“That was fucking hot.” And then there’s Arthur, his smile crooked and vibrant and so wonderfully, disgustingly human as he rolls onto his stomach with no thought for the state of his sheets. Arthur’s as real as any of the things Eames can’t touch these days. Arthur rises onto his elbows, squeezing the flat plane of his chest together. 

“I want to see you tomorrow night.”

“Arthur.” It’s a weak argument at best, with his cock softening against his leg and his own spunk shellacked into his happy trail, but he has to chase the last ember of plausible deniability. “Arthur, we shouldn’t—”

“What, do you have plans?”

And Eames laughs, laughs so hard that tears burn in his eyes. Arthur’s one of the only people who makes him laugh any more. “Well, I suppose I do now.”

Arthur rolls his eyes before he bores them into Eames. With the anxious stillness of a snake-charmed creature, Eames holds his breath before Arthur’s face cracks into an indulgent smile.

“That’s more like it.” Arthur opens his mouth, but jerks his head before he can say anything. Eames can just make out a soft voice in the background, muffled through Arthur’s door, God willing. Even as Eames roils with the horrid possibility of Arthur’s mum walking in on him, he can’t tear his eyes away from the stretch of Arthur’s neck as he yells, “Yeah!” toward the door. 

“I should go. But I’ll see you tomorrow,” Arthur whispers, sweet and dangerous.

Eames reaches out, running his index finger down the side of his phone where he can’t stroke Arthur’s face. “Happy birthday, Arthur.”

“Goodnight, Eames.” Arthur blinks out of existence and Eames is left staring at the background of his phone, Fournier’s _The Funeral of Shelley._ Eames should consign himself to a pyre. He can’t stop smiling. 

In the sudden dark, Eames tucks himself back in, wincing at the mess on his skin. There aren’t enough hot showers on Earth for him, but Eames has felt far dirtier if he’s honest with himself. He stretches his arms over his head, the good kind of sore. Eames’s bedtime has become a moving target as his weeks in isolation drag on, but for once a shower and his bed sound like a pleasant idea.

For the first time since the world went mad, Eames has something to look forward to.

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Byron's "She Walks In Beauty"


End file.
